It seems to be a long shot that the Newburyport City Council will pass a zoning change allowing a 24-hour CVS Pharmacy to be built along a busy stretch of Storey Avenue. It's an uphill battle to get the 8 votes on the 11-member council, and the voice of neighborhood opposition appears to be strong enough to convince just enough councilors to vote against it.
The plan clearly lacks some key components, and in its present form, it's not a good concept. Key among the problems is how to deal with traffic entering and leaving the site, which is located close to the often-congested intersection of Low Street and Storey Avenue. Further complicating the traffic there is Woodman Way, a relatively narrow road that serves as the only access to dozens of apartments and condominiums. All three roads spill into one another in an intersection design that would never meet modern standards.
The layout of Storey Avenue itself is also a problem. It lacks a center "suicide lane" that would allow for easier left-hand turns, it takes a strange and somewhat dangerous "dog leg" as it proceeds westward beyond the Woodman Way intersection, and it lacks room to handle backups caused by existing businesses, such as Dunkin' Donuts, which sometimes sees its drive-thru customer line spill out onto the roadway. Some, but not all, of these problems would be addressed by a redesign of the roadway.
Another problem for the CVS plan is a lack of secondary access onto Low Street. Letting customers get to CVS via Low Street would help alleviate some of the traffic flow onto Storey Avenue.
Without the zoning change, the developers could surely do something with the land they have under agreement with Eleanor Woodman. However, that strip of commercially zoned property on Storey Avenue is simply too narrow to build the kind of development they have in mind. They need to have the adjoining residential lots rezoned in order to have enough room for their plan.
Newburyport is being offered an enticing carrot if it agrees to the deal. More than 20 acres of nearby land would be given to the city for open space. Much of it is isolated and swampy, but it connects into a growing network of protected land that snakes along the edge of Interstate 95. It's an attractive offer, but it doesn't make up for the disruption that the CVS development will cause at that particular spot.
The city is in a good position to cut a better deal that satisfies residents' concerns. There is no doubt that the developers are willing to make a lot of concessions to get a CVS on the corner. The Salisbury CVS went through extensive changes in order to satisfy the town, as did the proposed CVS in Amesbury. Both were built by the same developer who is proposing the Newburyport CVS.
The heavy traffic flow we are experiencing now on Storey Avenue will diminish somewhat when the Hines Bridge is reopened and Storey Avenue is no longer needed as a detour around this vital cross-river link. But that just isn't enough to make the CVS plan work in its current form.
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